Friday, October 25, 2013

Fall Flicks: All Is Lost

Some more critical and award fodder with J.C. Chandor's All Is Lost starring the one and only Bobby the Robert Redford. The story concerns a seasoned sailor in the middle of the ocean whose vessel is struck by a stray shipping container from China holding a boatload of shoes.

Then it is basically: Redford. On a boat. Suffering hardship. After hardship. Then another hardship. Phew. I love Redford but I feel all of the praise his performance is garnering is a bit of an insult. There is no dialog to speak of, it's a very realistic account of one man's quest to survive. There are moments of true terror, the film is simple yet deftly constructed and quite a departure from Chandor's previous film, 2011's dialog heavy Margin Call.

We've seen how strong, funny, endearing and romantic Redford can be from Barefoot in the Park, The Candidate, Jeremiah Johnson, The Great Waldo Pepper and Sneakers among dozens of others. To to hail a performance where he says next to nothing and instead gives us a how-to on seminar on boat repair and survival techniques seems erroneous. It's a role any actor, put in the situation under the created elements, would probably receive our sympathy for.